Thursday, March 17, 2011

Setting up search shortcuts in Opera

One of the features of the Opera web browser which I really like and use often is the ability to do different search queries directly in the URL bar. Need to look up an address on Google Maps? Look up a word from dictionary.com? How about search for something using Google or Yahoo? Opera has some very handy shortcuts for these.

For instance, to do a search on Google for "Java", the steps involved are:

Do Ctrl-T to open a new browser tab, or Ctrl-N for a new window. The focus is automatically placed in the address bar.

Typeg Java and hit Enter.

The tab loads up Google search results for Java.

Easy, right? Of course, searching the interwebs using a search engine is such a common task that different browsers also have ways of doing it. The search bar is now common on IE and Firefox, and the steps involved are almost as good as Opera's:

Press Ctrl-T to open a new browser tab, or Ctrl-N for a new window. The focus is automatically placed in the address bar.

Hit Tab to advance focus to the search tab.

Enter your search term - in this case Java - and hit Enter.

The tab loads up Google search results for Java.

Safari also has a search box but I'm not familiar with the keyboard navigation shortcuts, so the steps above might not apply.

Chrome, from the Google search masters themselves, does away with the search box entirely, and moved that functionality into the address bar itself. And they helpfully let you choose which search engine you want to use when you first set it up (can you imagine Microsoft being brave enough to offer you a choice?). So, assuming Chrome is set up to search with Google, you have these steps:

Press Ctrl-T to open a new tab, or Ctrl-N for a new window. The focus is already at the address bar.

Enter your search term directly into the address bar and hit Enter.

The tab loads up Google's search results for Java.

If you're looking closely, it would appear that, in terms of workflow, Chrome is slightly better than Opera because you don't have to type the extra 'g' and space, right? But Opera has a reason for the extra letter: the 'g' is mapped to use Google, and you can do other letters for other types of searches. I happen to use Google Maps pretty often, so I set my Opera up with 'm' - then, I can go to Google Maps for e.g. zip code 94403 by typing m 94403 in the address bar. Need to look up a word? Dictionary.com works also: d fubar and there you go. Want to search for Nintendo DS games on Amazon? z NDS games will serve you right. Looking for the Wikipedia article on polar bears? w polar bear will get you there in a jiffy.

Enough with the babble - to adjust the defaults or add new web searches, look in the Preferences section:

This is with version 11 so things might be different with earlier and later versions. You can edit them if you like, and the search strings associated with them. Here are the ones I use most often (which might be set as the default already) and their associated search strings: